Strayed Chances
by Stormbird221
Summary: Kohaku watches Sesshomaru lean into the wind, and wonders what might have been. One-shot.


Okay, so this is just following Kohaku's train of thought, and it's sort of random, so I'm not sure how good it is.

°•°•°•°•°

It had been several days since Kohaku had started following Sesshomaru, and he had spent much of his time silently observing those around him.

The daiyoukai was currently standing a short way in front of him, gazing into the distance. This was something that the young demon slayer had seen him doing quite often, and he could not help but feel slightly curious as to what he was thinking on these occasions.

His sense of time was different from a human's, that much was obvious. There was a certain serenity about his presence that made the boy feel as though a hundred years meant nothing to him. Yet so much had happened in the last few months, what with Naraku's appearance and all, that it made his mind go numb. How could a creature so timeless still be so immediately tuned to the smallest of events?

Rin gave an exclamation of delight from beside him. Apparently she had seen some new kind of butterfly. She was Sesshomaru's opposite; finding joy in the smallest of things, and blissfully unaware of time passing by her. Yet he obviously cared for her, even treating her as though she were his own daughter.

That was another thing about Sesshomaru; he claimed to care for no one, when this was clearly not the case. It may have been true once, Kohaku mused, but Sesshomaru had changed, even if he would not admit it. Rin had changed him, his brother had changed him, and Kohaku suspected that Kagura had changed him as well. He hadn't seen his face when she'd died, but the simple fact that he'd been there and not out pursuing Naraku's heart had to account for something. He had been there, and there had been something in his terse response to Inuyasha's question. A certain sadness that sounded unnatural, as though it were foreign to the demon lord's tongue.

She was smiling.

Kohaku moved his gaze back to Sesshomaru. The daiyoukai's eyes were now closed, and he was leaning ever so slightly into the wind, his expression softer than he normally showed.

The wind.

Kagura.

She had died because she'd saved him, knowingly putting her own safety in jeopardy by disobeying her orders. She'd been the closest thing he'd had to a friend. Kohaku smiled regretfully, remembering how she had secretly harbored a crush on Sesshomaru. She'd denied it, of course, but he'd seen the way she had watched him in her rare free time. On the occasions when he wasn't acting as Naraku's mindless puppet, he had found it cute, if not rather hopeless.

Now it was seeming as though it might not be so one-sided as he had once thought. Not that it really mattered now. After all, it is more hopeless to love—no, love is still too strong a word—_to have feelings for_—a person who is dead, than for a person who is cold. Especially when that cold person is slowly thawing, even if they will never thaw quite enough to love. The simple tenderness had been there, and that was about as close as he would probably ever get.

Too bad it would never amount to anything.

Kohaku could not help but wonder what it might have become, had she lived. Kagura had deserved freedom, happiness. She had gotten both, in the end, but she also deserved life, and even Tenseiga hadn't been able to grant her that, however much its owner might have wished it.

Sesshomaru did not wish for many things. The fact that he had made this exception for her could only prove her significance to him. He had _wanted_ to save her, but had been powerless, and now—the sorrow in his eyes when she was mentioned, or when a teasing zephyr brushed against his face made Kohaku hate himself all over again.

He knew the feeling of losing someone. He had lost his family, friends. Anyone who tried to help him usually ended up dead. Kagura numbered among those people. He knew that he really shouldn't blame himself, but he couldn't help doing so. If she had brought him to Moryomaru, instead of forcing him to escape, she could have at least lived longer.

He didn't care about his own life, only redemption; she would've had her's ahead of her. He might even have been able to destroy Naraku's heart as his last action before he lost his shard. If Naraku was killed, she would be free. Sesshomaru wouldn't have had to know the loss that was so similar and yet so very different from his own.

The tenderness could have grown, and he might have thawed more than expected. Youkai lived for hundreds, and even thousands of years, who was to say how much more he might've changed. Things just hadn't worked out the way they should have.

The breeze began to pick up again, and Kohaku looked up, almost sure he'd heard a mischievous laugh.

Perhaps... she was not totally gone. She at least was with them in spirit, in the wind. Kohaku knew it, and he knew that Sesshomaru knew it.

And for one such as Sesshomaru, that knowledge may have been enough.


End file.
